Post #11 - Final Post!

Aww, man. This one was good.

I had to choose this map.

I'm a huge baseball fan. I've been playing ball since I was 5, and it's always been my most glamorous dream to play baseball for life in the big leagues. Every kid's dream...
I chose this map because it's actually accurate! After being a fan of the game for all these years, watching and listening to games, noticing which teams my friends root for, etc., I begin to notice exactly what this map shows! Concordia especially is a place where fans of different teams are assembled. I ask a lot of people what teams they root for and where they're from. Sometimes, they come from a place that's farther from the home city of the team and sometimes even out of that state, too. But for whatever the reason - whether it be regional or social circumstances, fans of these teams are usually arranged in such boundaries.
I think it just goes to show once again how people can be connected in almost any (usually unexplainable) way.
Oh, and go Cardinals!

Here's the link to the map since some of the team's names are hard to read:
http://chicagoist.com/attachments/chicagoist_chuck/2007_08_baseball_map.jpg

Blog #10 - Africa

I thought that the article from CATO on aid dependency was really thoughtful. I assume that the majority of the world's citizens, (myself included prior to reading this article), thinks that any kind of financial aid can only mean positive outcomes and progress. Sub-Saharan Africa is probably the most financially needy region of the planet. Living conditions and health are ranked among the world's lowest here. There is, without a doubt, an extreme need for development in these countries. So, it can only mean good outcomes if millions of dollars are delivered to these countries in order to provoke drastic improvement. After reading the CATO article, though, I thought about some different ideas. The authors of the article mention how the United States and United Nations have been sending millions upon millions of dollars to Africa since the 1960's in hope of its development. After almost half a century, development and improvement of human conditions in these areas have not drastically or noticeably improved. Could this mean that foreign financial aid does less than originally thought? Maybe.
Come to think of it, can money really solve any of our real problems? Development and catching up with the rest of civilization has to be among the toughest challenges we can face. How could such an issue be solved with currency? Without the right hands to which the money is given, the assistance may just turn out to be worthless. Like the article mentions, these funds can be used for corrupt and inappropriate purposes. Money corrupts, right?
I propose something else, though.
In Environmental Science class this semester, we had a rather interesting class on the Guinea Worm, a parasitical illness that thrives in the less-developed and less-educated countries in Africa. This parasite had been plaguing these countries for decades. But recently, Guinea Worm has been on a steady decline. Money exchanges could never solve this problem. Rather, it was a group of people in foreign countries working together to educate the plagued communities and eliminate the parasite.
It was people.
We can solve the problems of the world. Money, not so much.

Post #9 - Unrest In The Middle East

For post 9, I chose to research the unrest occurring in Libya, primarily because I have little knowledge on the events there. Upon researching the topic, I came across the video above. It shows a group of Libyan rebels in celebration after they had captured a government-controlled office structure. Government snipers had allegedly using the building to shoot at civilians in protest.
According to the Tehran Times, protests in Libya are due to an effort to remove an extended 'iron fist' rule by Muammar Gaddafi, which has lasted over 40 years. The efforts to remove the Libyan ruler are to attempt a push for democratic revolution, of which similar events have been taking place in the region.